Snapshots
by ohyellowbird
Summary: A series of AHS drabbles, most of which will revolve around Tate and Violet's relationship.
1. The Devil's Backbone

**A/N: **Hey guys! So, like I mentioned in my last fic, I have started school up and it is pretty much sucking my will to live, BUT i want to keep writing and remain active in our wonderful fandom, hence this! Since I don't have time right now to sit down and bust out a proper fic, I am going to use this to post a series of drabbles. They won't necessarily contain the same pairing or have any continuity or even be in the same universe, but I will make sure to mention at the beginning of each chapter who the pairing is and what universe it's in and such.

So, this is my first of (hopefully) many little drabbles.

**The Devil's Backbone**

**Pairing: **Tate/Langdon

**Universe:** Gray Glube's and my 'Devils' universe.

**Rating:** T/M

**Genre: **Friendship/Romance

Enjoy!

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><p>Langdon rolls onto his hip and cups the underside of the pillow with his arm, watching his brother's eyes zip back and forth, watching Tate lick the pad of his finger and turn the page. He's been on a mission to read through everything Violet's got stuffed into her bookshelf. If she isn't willing to fuck him anymore, maybe if he reads up on Bronte and Plath she'll be coaxed into polite conversation at the least - yeah, he knows, but at this point, grasping at straws is all he's got.<p>

The two broad-shouldered blonds are lazed out in the guest room, corralled inside by the mid-June drizzle. The more manic of the pair is nursing a stale cigarette he'd nicked from the crawlspace and puffing out each exhale into Tate's line of sight.

"Can we get wrinkles?"

"What."

Langdon rolls his eyes, put off by his brother's dismissive tone but undeterred.

"Because you, Sir Broods-A-Lot, should _definitely_ have frown lines or something." He trails a long finger down between Tate's furrowed brows and over the straight line of his nose, offering him a drag when he reaches his mouth.

Tate accepts, wrapping his lips around the chewed filter and pulling in a breath, cheeks hollowing out. Langdon sighs, pauses to watch for the plume of smoke to unfurl before placing the cigarette back between his own teeth and propping up on one elbow.

"So... what're we reading today?"

Tate doesn't even look over, just chews a patch of dead skin at the swell of his lip and flips the page.

Langdon bristles with an indignant pout and, not one for being ignored, leans to nudge at the corner of Tate's book with the business end of his cigarette. It catches and breathes a radiant orange.

A puny flame climbs up one crisp edge.

"What the fuck, Langdon," Tate huffs, more exasperated than anything, effectively stamping out the blaze with the heel his hand and tossing the book safely to the floor when it's no longer smoking.

"Much better," Langdon grins, satisfied, rubbing out the cigarette in his palm and flicking it somewhere to their left - one of his favorite things about Murder House; around the clock maid service.

"What do you want?" Tate's voice holds no warmth, not even a tired fondness, just begrudged resignation. It's sad really, how listless he is when she's not around.

"_Jesus, _someone's in quite_ the mood _today, what's got your panties in a twist?"

"...fuck off."

Langdon chuckles and beams and teeters over onto Tate's chest, covering his twin's body with his own, working a knee between his legs, elbows coming to rest at either side of Tate's head on the pillow.

"Okay, come on, spill."

They're face to face, wearing coordinating smiles and scowls, until Tate turns his in defiance, arms stiff at his sides. He stares blankly ahead at the opposite wall, at the peeling patch of wallpaper. The weight pressing him into the mattress isn't unwelcome, but he'd rather it were slighter, more spindly, with a sheet of ash hair to tickle his cheek.

Outside there's the sound of a horn honking and the squeal of brakes and after a short delay, the unmistakable crunch-mashing of metal.

"Is that what this is about, the whole gazebo _whatever?_" Langdon waves a careless hand at the whole debacle. "Listen, I said I was sorry, it's what she wanted. What was I gonna do - deny her? _Right._ And if I'm remembering correctly... you ended up killing me. I think that makes us about squaresies."

Tate's face darkens and he throws his brother a sideways glare, but when he inhales like he's about to speak, there's a hand curving over his mouth. It smothers whatever rebuttal he'd had incubating. His nostrils flare and he resists the childish urge to mold his tongue against the crease of Langdon's fingers.

Then there's a thumb pressing into the hollow under his chin to keep him still, firm enough to leave a bruise between his mandible

"It's quiet time," Langdon coos sweetly, the all over black in his eyes unusually soft as he wets his lips and ducks in to suck a web of kisses down the long line of his double's neck.

Tate makes to protest but then his twin is nipping at the start of his collarbone and grinding down in loose circles against his groin and he lets himself remember that before Violet, this was all he had. Langdon had suffered seventeen sorrow-sodden years with him.

Somewhere down the road an ambulance whirs up the street. It's followed by the blare of two fire engines and, a minute or two later, a police car, but the warning signs of death fade into the wet sounds of heavy breathing as Tate tips his head back to expose more of his throat and pushes underneath the hem of his brother's shirt to trace out the ridges of Langdon's backbone, the one he used to have, the one Violet keeps telling him he needs back.

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><p><strong>AN: **Thanks for reading!

Since most of these will be between 500-1000 words, feel free to PM me with little prompts. It would be fun to try and fill some mini requests with this silly thing. xx


	2. Stupid Little Life

**Stupid Little Life**

**Pairing: **Tate/Violet

**Universe:** Canon. Post-Finale

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Friendship/Romance

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><p>"I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday. "<p>

-Lester Burnham, _American Beauty_

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><p>"Bullshit," Hayden sneers at the television screen, her feet in Tate's lap and a bowl of popcorn propped against her sternum. Tate reaches sideways and scoops out a handful, his fingers shining with butter, sticky with salt.<p>

He chews through his response and wipes his hand against the shin of her pants.

"What is?"

"What he said about dying. I didn't get any Kodak moments. One second I was leading Ben outside for an early lunch, pregnant and _fucking_ glowing, and the next I was waking up in the danky-ass basement with, like, clumps of mummified shit in my hair and dirt caked into my gums."

"Gross," Tate cringes, reflexively licking at the perfect whites of his teeth.

The credits roll through and after a few minutes the Netflix menu pop back up.

A boy without purpose, Tate's decided to fill his time with IMDB's calculated list of the top 250 movies ever made, and after catching him at the laptop watching a low-res download of WALL-E, Hayden had caved and taught him to steal cable. Now, every day when the house got quiet and indigo smothered the sun, the two exiled ghosts would wander into the living room and start up something critically acclaimed.

Over the years, two-and-a-half since The Harmons met their infinite fate, Tate and Hayden had found in one another a reluctant companion. They were both lonely, rejected by the ones they'd gambled their hearts away to, and angry, so so angry at being trapped with the constant reminders of their choices walking and talking and dutifully ignoring them. That anger revealed itself in different ways, in violent Mantis-style fuck sessions with Hugo or The Boy Dahlia for Hayden, and in debilitating self-loathing for Tate, but it was always present in the way that Ben and Violet were not.

In the months and months since she'd cast him out, crying and defiant, he could count the number of times he'd seen her on the fingers of one hand. She either made sure to stay out of his line of sight or had just chosen to keep herself cloaked from his searching eyes.

At every creak or scuffle, Tate's head would snap in the direction of origin, hoping for a glimpse, just the mirage of her soft hair or the disappearing round of one heel. But not anymore, not when he only ever came up with empty walls. He was starting to think about moving on, about pushing out the venom of his love, and night by night, little by little, Hayden was helping him do just that.

Now, don't get the wrong idea. Their relationship, _whatever _it was, was entirely platonic. Sure, they'd fooled around once or twice out of drunken curiosity or boredom, but only because they were both easy on the eyes and had the coordinating parts.

But it always felt forced; she didn't have a waif-like frame and he was missing blue eyes and broad shoulders.

No, they worked better like this.

"What next?" Hayden yawns, stretching out across the cushions, flexing her toes and squealing when Tate flicks at the soft underside of her foot.

"I dunno, The Godfather?"

"Ugh, no."

Tate digs into his pocket for the folded scrap of paper that they'd written the next set of titles on.

"I've never seen Fight Club."

Hayden makes a face that's equal parts shock and disgust and snags the remote.

"Jesus, how is that even _possible_," she groans, thrusting at the t.v. and pressing play, setting the bowl of unwanted kernels on the rug. "Then again, being dead would probably put a damper on shit like that."

Tate raises his eyebrows in pointed agreement and slumps down the back of the couch, tipping the lamp to click it off as their movie loads.

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><p>About half way in, when Edward Norton is beating the shit out of Jared Leto just to destroy something beautiful, there's the soft padding of bare feet on wooden floors and seconds later, the quiet rush of water in the kitchen sink.<p>

Hayden's drooling against the opposite cushion. Her eyeliner is smudged down one cheek and her legs are curled up so just the pads of her toes are pressing into his hip.

Tate turns to pull a blanket from the back of the couch and spots Violet standing in the open doorway.

His hand goes limp and he squints to be sure that she's real, that he hasn't finally cracked.

The embellished thwack of fist on flesh falls away behind him - it's her.

She doesn't snarl or disappear, just folds her arm to cup her elbow and blinks at him from the dark of the hall.

"What are you watching?"

She's got a glass of water in one hand and she looks almost nervous.

Tate opens his mouth to speak, but finds himself too busy drinking in the sudden sight of her to reach for words. She's wearing fleece pj pants and a ratty old t-shirt that hangs askew to reveal the tease of one bare shoulder. His gaze circles the sharp bone that tops off the curved porcelain.

"Fight Club," he mutters when he gathers himself, clearing his throat. He used to think their first words after all this time would be a little more poignant, a confession or forgiveness. But lately, he's been trying to ween himself from the idea that they'd ever speak again.

"Cool," she nods, glancing from him to the front door to the t.v. screen, grabbing at the edge of the hallway runner with her toes.

He stares and fights the skittering inside his ribs, swallows down the searing urge to bound over to her and beg his way back into her bed.

Not now. Not yet.

She's tired. He'll spook her.

After another moment of silent appraisal, Hayden wheezes in her sleep and Violet raises an anxious hand to tuck back a rogue wisp of hair.

"Well, it's late so I'm gonna-"

"Yeah, okay," Tate rushes, stepping all over her goodbye, his eyebrows bending in apology after. "I mean, you're welcome to stay and watch if you want."

Violet shakes her head and tells him thanks, but no, and steps back towards the stairs.

With each receding whine of the floorboards his heart lurches and his hand fists into a regretful knot in the blanket, but then she's back, peeking into the room, all shy eyes and teeth-plucked lips.

"Tate."

He buttons his lips over the sound hearing her say his name evokes and hopes whatever expression he's wearing isn't too tellingly hopeful.

She hesitates over her next words, searches them out in the dark room behind his face, but meets his gaze a moment later and forces them all out in one breath.

"I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to watch Amelie or something tomorrow. I've got a copy up in my room and if you haven't seen it it's fucking, really good..."

This time Tate waits, however impatiently, for her to finish her thought before responding with a guarded "yeah, that sounds great," and nodding at her over the back of the couch.

She gifts him the beginning of a smile, brings the glass to her lips for a drink to hide the bloom of it, and toddles out of sight with a wave.

He exhales and lets the caged bird in his heart flap wildly against the front of his chest and forces his attention back to the television screen, but for the rest of the movie and a while after that, until Hayden mumbles awake and shoves him off the couch, Tate allows himself to remember what it felt like to be happy and in love.

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><p><strong>AN: **Hey guys. Thanks for reading! Just wanted to write a little something about Hayden and Tate's friendship. I think we tend to ignore her in this fandom and while she is pretty bat shit and incredibly obnoxious at times, I think without Violet, Tate would eventually turn to her for companionship. I dunno! I promise I'll write some smut soon. xx


	3. Residue

**A/N: **So I was talking with **jandjsalmon **last night and mentioned wanting to read this fic, but because i am impatient, i ended up writing a drabble for it myself.

Yep!

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><p><strong>Residue<strong>

**Pairing: **Tate/Violet

**Universe:** General AU

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst

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><p>Violet dies on a Wednesday.<p>

"Tate!" she squeals, beating half-heartedly at his chest, because even though this will be her third tardy in a row, if she's going to be late for school, this is a pretty fucking good reason.

Tate grins into the side of her throat and nods, but can't help marking her up with one final bruise, as if the other six, all in various stages of healing, didn't scream _hands off! _already.

"I look like a leopard, you asshole," she scowls at his reflection when she's finally wormed out of his hold to at least roll on some deodorant and brush her teeth. He shrugs and openly admires his work with a smile she'd like to peel off. He nabs her mascara before she can get any on her lashes, but fuck it, who's she out to impress?

Parents gone or busy, not that she cares, aren't around to mind that Tate walks her down the stairs and out the front door.

"Don't forget your lunch!" Tate snickers, and barks out a laugh when she actually zips open her bag to check. She rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue, but hurries back up the driveway anyway for one last kiss, a sloppy smack of their lips. Then, she's leaving, for real this time.

The late bus is waiting across the street and the driver looks pissed, so of course Violet hangs around for a little hand hold and a quiet, "gonna miss you."

"Be good," she says, and he smiles, but she knows it's a lie. He'll kill a ghost or two while she's gone, out of anger or boredom. But he's got to stop offing the living. There hasn't been a vacancy at Murder House for years and between Tate and Hayden, there will be bodies pouring out the windows in no time.

Violet makes sure to latch the gate on her way out, regrips the strap of her bag and waves at Leah, who's holding a cigarette out the broken window in the back.

"Love you!" Tate yells from the grass, elbows perched on the fence, smile lazy and all for her.

Violet turns back to catch a glimpse of her forever boy, her hair a sheet against the side of her face in the wind. She wants to dart out of the street and back into those arms. Fuck school, the books she reads at home teach her a fuckload more than any of the curriculum they're forcing down her throat at Westfield. But she doesn't run back, she wavers.

Then a number of things happen all at once.

Tate says something from the yard, screams it, hands cupped around his mouth, but he sounds so far away now. She can't hear over the loud honking somewhere to her right, or the sharp squeal of bad brakes.

Violet barely has a moment to register the confusing look of naked panic on her boyfriend's face before everything goes black.

She's swimming in the dark, pulled under. It's quiet, just the labored rattle of someone breathing. But then there's a ringing in her ears and a voice, but whoever it is must be underwater too because she can't understand what the hell they're trying to say. And honestly, she doesn't really care. It's nice down here, wherever she is, peaceful.

Violet floats for a while, but then the sun begins to bore through her closed lids and there's another voice, _his _voice. His words are garbled, but there's no mistaking the tone; he's terrified. It's a struggle, but somehow she manages to wade up to the surface. Opening her eyes is harder still, but then they're being lifted for her.

The first thing she sees is a blur that looks suspiciously like her grumpy-sour bus driver, ick That isn't what she wants. Squinting past the sun's glare, she turns her head and, lips curving into a smile, finds Tate.

He's at the fence still, but where he had been lounging before, he is clinging to the iron bars. Feet on the lowest rung, he's as close as he can get without being out in the street. And his face... it's wet.

"Violet!" he's screaming, and she tries to ask him what, but nothing comes out. There's no air for her words. Even breathing is hard.

People are crowding around her now, and she must be on the asphalt, she realizes, because the sky's straight up and eye level only gets her ankles high. They squat down and babble in hushed tones, sweeping back her hair, petting the outside of her arm like she might be made of glass.

"Don't fucking touch me!" she doesn't say, because she can't, because she hasn't got a voice. Tate has to be loud enough for the both of them. His face is pinched in horror and he's _screaming, _seething for somebody, anybody, to bring her back home. He's impossible, sounding broken and undone and while Violet's proud he'd be so protective, she doesn't understand why.

The people who were touching her before, the bus driver and her classmates, a neighbor now, or two, they're slowly backing away at Tate's command, obviously confused as to why the stricken boy doesn't just come out into the street himself. Some of them have phones at their ear, but the ones that touched her, that jerkoff from her Chem class and the bus driver, they've got red all over their empty hands.

Violet's eyes roll in her sockets. She tries to lift her head, but oh, she can't, and the rest of her body, she can't even feel it.

Suddenly everything slides into focus. It all makes sense, the honking and the screams and Tate's face gone mad with fear.

She can't fucking breathe. Her lungs won't inflate, they've been crushed.

"Honey, honey, you're going to be fine. We've called for an ambulance," someone says, but their faces don't make sense anymore, not with the realization that she's dying out in the street overshadowing everything, everything except for that boy with blonde hair out on the grass.

When her eyes land on Tate's again, clearer now, he surges against the fence, knuckles bone-white where they're gripping the slats. "Violet!" he chokes out. "_You have to come home_!"

She watches him with a sad smile, knowing in an instant that she can't, won't. An eternity with Tate would be nice - her heart flutters weakly at the idea - but it would still be an eternity trapped. Out here, in the street, she might be dying, but at least she's free.

"I love you," she mouths with the breeze cool against her brow, and shuts her eyes, because she doesn't want to know what his face will look like and because she's so, so tired. It creeps up on her, then blankets her all at once, this bottomless exhaustion. Everything goes fuzzy again, she just wants to float. Distantly, she thinks that her cheek might be wet, and that something smells like pennies, and then she doesn't think at all.

Tate's throat is in ribbons from screaming, but if anything, he only gets louder when she goes terribly, horribly still.

"Violet, look at me!" he cries, slipping down the fence to sit in the grass, forehead pressed against a lower rung. "Look at me!"

A few minutes later, when she still hasn't looked - and that's because she's stubborn, _not _because she's gone, the ambulance arrives. Men in crisp uniforms fold out of the little van and hurry over to where Violet is splayed out in the street, limbs limp and bent like a doll's. One of them crouches down by her shoulder and puts two fingers up to her throat. Time passes one grain of sand at a time then and Tate watches, breath forgotten, for any sign, anything at all. And he gets one, but he won't believe it. That same man lifts his head after what feels like forever and shakes his head, slow and sad, at the other man in white.

Tate boils over. "No!" he rasps, voice gone, the word leaving his lips over and over until it's little more than a mad, whispered babbling. Tears rush down his cheeks, hot, burning trails, real for once. It's like being split right down the middle and having the only parts you really need torn out one by one, and shown to you. In the next minute, he's hollow.

He stays there for hours, a heap of despair at the bottom of the fence, long after they've hauled off her body and someone's come to clean up the blood left behind. They powerwash the road and the water, tinged red, rolls towards him to swirl down the gutter.

Tate watches it, eyes red and puffy, silent at last.

When it's all gone and the street is clean, any reminder of her disappeared. Tate pushes up onto uneasy legs and walks back to the house.

The seeds of goodness that Violet had planted within him, sprouts now, wilt and crumble by the time he reaches the door. The only light he's ever known, brighter a hundred times over than the sun, is gone. Any and all feeling is sapped with her death. He is a true ghost now, the husk of something living, residue.

He doesn't need the stairs to sink into the basement. Thaddeus hisses, but Tate steps carelessly around where he's crawling in the corner. He sinks further then, down into the crawlspace and deeper. Into the very soil from which everything is born. And there he stays, until somehow, some way, Violet will return to him


End file.
